As initially configured, lawn darts, consisted of large, metal-tipped darts. The darts were thrown with an underhand motion toward a target ring placed flat upon the ground. The objective being to cause the dart to stick into the ground within the ring. These types of lawn darts were received favorably by the public, in part because the dart typically remained where it landed, thus rewarding an accurate and skillful throw. However, these products were subsequently removed from the market because it was realized that the weight and metal tip of the lawn darts made them a hazard to safety.
More recently, others have proposed lawn games employing darts with blunt tips or similar design features intended to protect participants and others in the vicinity. For example, Wong U.S. Pat. No. 4,946,172 describes a lawn dart with the safety feature of a blunt, deformable nose section. Miranda U.S. Pat. No. 4,813,686 describes a shuttlecock with a weighted base and a soft, resilient cushion intended to prevent injury to players. Pratt U.S. Pat. No. 5,112,062 also describes a lawn dart with a safety blunt nose section and a rotating and sliding shaft section.
Unfortunately, safety lawn darts have been less favorably received. As a result, there is a continual need to improve upon the prior art safety lawn darts.